A lecture by Dr. Mary Freeman, assistant professor of history at the University of Maine, exploring slavery and emancipation in Maine, antislavery activism and the role of African Americans, and Underground Railroad myths. In-person at Castine’s Emerson Hall, 67 Court St. If unable to attend in person, watch the event live on our YouTube Channel. Click on the link below to watch the event live. Funded by a grant from the Maine Humanities Council.

Watch the Event Live on YouTube

This presentation will briefly explore the long history of slavery and emancipation in Maine before focusing on antislavery activism in the decades leading up to the Civil War. Dr. Freeman will pay particular attention to the role of African Americans in advancing the cause of abolition in Maine and the complicated relationship between myth and historical fact in understanding Mainers’ involvement in the Underground Railroad.

Mary T. Freeman is assistant professor of history at the University of Maine. She is a historian of the nineteenth-century United States, with a focus on the political, social, and cultural history of slavery and abolition. Her work also explores abolitionism, African American history, and women’s history in Maine and New England. She received her PhD from Columbia University in 2018. Her current book project, which will be published by University of Pennsylvania Press, examines letter writing in the nineteenth-century antislavery movement, arguing that correspondence enabled abolitionists to organize as a group and articulate radical ideas at a time when they were excluded from mainstream electoral politics. She is also researching abolitionism and nineteenth-century African American politics in Maine.

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